USVI-On-Line

I am trying to book a trip for June from DFW & the only seats are using twice as many miles as usual. I checked to the middle of September & nothing. Has AA done away with the cheap seats using miles? I am very frustrated!!

I don't think they've done away with them, there just aren't many and you need to grab them as soon as they are available.

We had to get first class ff for our trip down, and coac on the return. This was done in February for November.

I'm having the same problem too Rhonda! Funny, you can leave tomorrow for 25K miles round trip but try anything this summer or through Sept. and it's 60K per ticket!!

It's getting really hard to use your miles!!

That is exactly why we don't use our AA credit card anymore. We switched to the Capital One Venture card and we can use any airline with no black out dates. So far we've been happy with this card. AA is just making it nearly impossible to use their ff miles and their schedules are terrible for us from Michigan.

We just switched to the Capital One Venture card for the same reason. We used to be able to do a round trip from Boston for 35000 miles now it is as much as 70000. Also AA is not going to the Caribbean as much and their flight times and ff seats are terrible.

I booked AA miles for our 2012 St John trip recently. You have to use Anytime miles now for about everything. They don't even release Economy miles until fairly close to the trip - by then the seats are filled out anyway so you're screwed. You just have to figure 70K miles a ticket to get to St John now. We're switching to Capital One as well.

Sometimes you have better luck doing midweek travel dates such as Thurs-Thurs. We are going next March using a Thurs-Friday schedule as that was all that was available even 329 days out. We have also switched to Cap One for this same reason. The other fun thing is dealing with AA changing flights, I've had to call them twice since booking to rearrange. The last change their computer made had us leaving STT at 6:30am and left us with an 8 hr layover in SJU coming home.
Good luck.

We just snatched up our off-season award tickets on US Airways for September. They really go FAST! They were all gone for our route within 30 minutes.

As a side note, I tried the Capital One Venture card, but it is not the same as an actual miles card.

For example: If we have 20K miles on the US card, we can use them for a round trip ticket in the off-season. If we have 20K "miles" on a Venture card, we get a $200 credit. That won't get us anywhere!

It's like comparing apples to oranges. They are not the same type of program. Most people do not realize that the actual credit with the "miles" on the Venture card is actually divided by 100 when they are redeemed. 20,000 = $200

Diana2 wrote:AA is just making it nearly impossible to use their ff miles and their schedules are terrible for us from Michigan.

I am surprised to hear this. I just booked thru Detroit rather than my home airport of ORD because of the excellent schedule (and hugely lower fare) from Detroit. Depart 7:20am for Miami, layover 1.5 hours, land on STT at 2:25pm.

To get the same 2:25p arrival from ORD, there is only a risky 30 minute layover in MIA. I am already missing the direct ORD-STT flight that UA seems to have dropped.

Anyways, agree on the mileage. I am PLAT with AA, and Premier with UA. Both have their challenges on redeeming miles...I think it is industry-wide (except for Southwest, which of course does not fly to STT.

Funny thing is, is that I (and most folks going to STT/STJ) will complain but in the end will go ahead and pay for an expensive ticket or pay with max miles. Until folks opt to not do so, they will continue to extract maximum fares. Free market in action.

Muhaha wrote:Funny thing is, is that I (and most folks going to STT/STJ) will complain but in the end will go ahead and pay for an expensive ticket or pay with max miles. Until folks opt to not do so, they will continue to extract maximum fares. Free market in action.

You are right. Airlines determine the price of tickets, everything from full first to FF free tickets, using computer programs. They call it capacity control. The availability of the tickets are not the same for Muhaha and me as they are for the passenger with no elite status. When I am booking award seats I need to check a box to indicate if I am traveling on the proposed reservation. Why? Because they make more award seats available to me than to some of you.

That capacity control program is telling the humans that they have too many seats available this week and need to try to give some away. It is also telling them that the flights in a few months are likely to sell out so don't give any more away. That is why the price for a coach seat changes as often as several times in the same day. Why do they want to give seats away? Because the frequent flier miles show up on their balance sheets as a liability. If they can get you to give up some miles to fly in a seat that would be empty any other way, they come out ahead in the transaction.

I have stood at the gate in ATL waiting for our STT flight and heard them offer 1st class upgrades - for a price - to any coach passenger who wants it. That is a sign the the program guessed wrong leaving them with unclaimed 1st class seats. It's not a perfect system, but it's right more often than not.

Most airlines make seats available for a flight 330 days before departure. That means we need to be looking for seats 330 days before our anticipated return flight.

JIM

We finally made our reservations & have a ticker! We ended up purchasing tickets on US Airways to STT & using miles for the return trip on American. It took me two days to get it all figured out but glad it is done! Thanks to everyone for your thoughts & suggestions.

We've used American Aadvantage miles to fly to many spots in the Caribbean over the years. But something's very different with AA frequent flier options to STT this year.

I knew we wanted to travel to STT from DC in early January, 2012, so I started watching Aadvantage flights a YEAR ahead of time. The earliest January Economy (35K roundtrip) flight at that time was on the 17th. Nothing earlier ever opened up. In fact, the first Economy flight to STT from DC is still January 17th.

I thought this might just be a website problem, so I called American. Nope, the website was accurately showing what was available.

Eventually, in May, we bit the bullet and used more miles to get the early January flights we wanted. This is the first time we've had to do this. (My wife and I are both Aadvantage Gold members, but our status doesn't open up any extra flight options.)

TM

ToonMann wrote:We've used American Aadvantage miles to fly to many spots in the Caribbean over the years. But something's very different with AA frequent flier options to STT this year.

I knew we wanted to travel to STT from DC in early January, 2012, so I started watching Aadvantage flights a YEAR ahead of time. The earliest January Economy (35K roundtrip) flight at that time was on the 17th. Nothing earlier ever opened up. In fact, the first Economy flight to STT from DC is still January 17th.
TM

I did the same for my 3/24/12 trip. I checked on the morning that the date was first elibible for booking (it's 350 days in advance, I believe) and sure enough no 17.5k options. I think they are not allowing the lower mileage option until closer to the travel date so as to maximize mileage charge and paid fares. When the date get's closer, they go into fill the seat mode and open the mileage. Just my guess, but it seems to fit the observations.

US BANK Flex Card enough said...great card and allows you to choose from 5+airline options. shhhh

Well that sucks last few years we have been able to squeeze 6 tickets using the cheapy ones. Hope they open up some more as time progesses. We do have a Capital One card also for our backup miles card.